Julio's Comet

This alkyd painting is something of a nostalgic piece, a tribute to all of the many little ranches which once dotted Miami-Dade and Broward counties. It took just a few bucks a month to keep a horse at most of these places. Some of them were messier than others. There were always plenty of cats, because people dropped them off. Sometimes people fed their horses hay using shopping carts as mangers. Most didn't have electricity. You had a hand pump for your horse's water and got a strong arm from keeping his trough full. You built your stall and paddock yourself, frequently of "found" lumber such as large plywood signs discovered alongside a country road. Ironically, those signs were often advertising the housing development that was slated to take the place of the ranch. Now South Florida is getting close to being built out, with thousands of new homes on artfully sculpted lands. To own a horse you have to be wealthy enough to own a Mercedes, assuming you can find a place to board it.

But, not so long ago, really, I had a decent sized clientele scattered throughout those little ranches, and I painted a lot of well-loved horses that were not always of the blue-ribbon variety. At one of those sort-of-messy ranches, owned by a gentleman named Julio, I found his old dark blue Comet with a curious goat giving me the eye. I had a friend who used to tease me about all my horse portraits, calling them "goat paintings" and that sort of inspired me to mess with him a bit.

What was nice about this scene was that it was close to sunset, so I was able to make the goat a very pale pink-orange, and develop the palette of the painting with values and hues to represent that time of day.

Another challenge was the grill of the car, which took me eight solid hours of work to get right. It may sound a bit odd, but one of the things of which I am most proud in this painting is the headlight on the viewer's left hand side. Just a few strokes; I got them down and then the darn thing looked perfect.

The original was painted on a 20" by 24" canvas, and I offer it as the same size, as a giclée edition of 250 on museum-quality varnished canvas, for $280. I am also offering two editions on paper, at the original size of 20" by 24" for $175, limited to 200 pieces, and at 10" by 12" for $60, limited to 500 prints. All are individually signed and numbered, and a Certificate of Authenticity is available upon request.

And yes, the name, "Julio's Comet" is a play on Halley's Comet. Astoundingly, the last I heard, Julio had actually got his Comet running again!

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